We're Floored (Weekend #2)

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Saturday morning we were up bright and early to finish the floors in the office. I had my doubts about using a power saw for the first time, but my husband (being the kind, patient, supportive and encouraging person he is) actually got me to do it (with his supervision of course). My first cut took something like two minutes because I was so nervous (and slow) but I did it!

The piece on the left is mine - perfect cut, don't you think?

After a few more rows, it was time for more underlayment:

Then fitting the wood by tapping with a mallet:

And finally stapling each piece in the side using an air nailer:

We had a handy system where I would lay out all the pieces, and do the end cuts, and Max would basically do everything else. After a yummy lunch of Chick-fil-A, I felt super fueled and energized to try the rest of the process. Here I am fitting the wood. It was so not as easy as it looked when my husband was doing it! The mallet and the air nailer were both really heavy. I did one row and was wiped out.

There were definitely some tricky parts, namely the diagonal cuts where the room changed shape, and then the edge where we couldn't use the air nailer due to the impending wall and had to go back to gluing and nailing with a smaller gun. We did eventually get to the last piece : )

And when we did, the room looked something like this:

Here we are now, a bit dusty and in serious need of baseboards, but holy cow, we did that! I'm still so amazed : )

In case you're wondering, the wood we installed was pre-distressed solid black walnut. It's the same wood we have downstairs, and now we're even thinking of taking out the carpet in the upstairs hallways and replacing it with the same wood. We'll keep you posted ; )